There was so little chance of a future for them that it was practically nonexistent. However, the feelings she had for him demanded she not walk away even if their chance at a future together had worse odds than winning the jackpot in California’s state lottery.
She loved him.
She couldn’t deny it. No other reason explained her inexplicable decision to stay on the island and to come with him to Athens knowing how little interest he had in a long-term relationship.
It was horribly ironic that she’d fallen in love with the one man programmed by her mother’s behavior to steer clear of any woman from the Long family. But there were lottery winners and maybe she could be a winner at love too.
It took only a moment to check her E-mail via her server’s Web site once the computer came online. There were several messages. So many in fact, that she almost deleted one from a friend of her mother’s in a wholesale clearing of junk mail from her in-box. She stopped herself just in time and clicked on the message, expecting an expression of sympathy of her recent loss.
Instead, the E-mail was a barely coherent diatribe about Matthias Demakis and his threat to divorce Andrea. It was only then that Rachel realized the message had been written the same day as the accident. She hadn’t received it before she left and now wished she’d deleted it with the junk mail.
Apparently Matthias had gotten fed up with his wife’s outrageous behavior and told her that he intended to divorce her, settling a small alimony stipend on her. Nothing like enough to make it possible for her to continue with her current decadent lifestyle. Her mother’s friend believed Rachel should come to Greece and stand beside Andrea in her time of need.
The thought was a nauseating one.
The very suggestion she stand by her mother’s side in such a scenario was obscene. The additional suggestion by her mother’s friend that it was in Rachel’s own best interest was just as appalling. She’d never considered Matthias Demakis a meal ticket and hated the fact that anyone would assume she did simply because she was Andrea’s daughter. She would never have countenanced a bid for more money by Andrea from a man who had already paid far too much in his marriage to her.
The rest of her E-mails were innocuous and she finished going through them in very little time.
Afterward, she continued her exploring. Across the hall, she found Sebastian’s bedroom. It was ultra-masculine and she could almost feel his presence amid the chocolate brown and vanilla decor. She spent several minutes just soaking in the reality of being inside his most private sanctuary.
She found her cases in the next room down the hall. The furnishings were decidedly feminine. Pale blue and peach with whitewashed wood made a departure from the other rooms in the apartment. Had he had the room designed for his lovers’ comfort?
But no, she couldn’t imagine him planning to have female guests overnight that were not intending to share his bed. Perhaps he’d had it decorated for his mother’s visits. That was much more in keeping with his character.
The fact that he’d had her things put in the room indicated his willingness to respect her right to choose if and when they began a physical relationship. She appreciated Sebastian not assuming she would sleep with him immediately. However, she knew that if she stayed in his apartment for any length of time, it would not be sleeping in the double size bed in the beautiful guest room.
Sebastian rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his desk chair.
It had been a long day, with one draining meeting after another. The Chinese business contacts that had shown up unexpectedly had required careful handling and a tremendous focus on what was being said in each of their get-togethers. It had taken nearly half of the day for him to discern their objective in coming and the rest of the day making sure they did not achieve something not in his company’s best interest.
The thought of going home to his apartment and seeing Rachel was very tempting, but he forced himself to go through his in-basket of personal correspondence before leaving. There were only a few letters, but some of them were over a week old.
He’d been gone for a lot longer than he’d originally planned when he’d flown to the island to take charge after his great-uncle’s death. He’d taken care of business easily, but had told his secretary to hold off forwarding personal correspondence because he’d expected to be back sooner and he’d never rescinded that order.
Why, even though he’d been gone longer than expected?
Because he’d been focused on the confusing woman waiting in his apartment and he hadn’t even thought of it.
He’d called her twice that afternoon, just like a lovesick boy. She’d responded like she was really happy to hear from him and was probably hearing wedding bells in her head.
He had no one to blame but himself. He shouldn’t encourage her to think their relationship was out of the norm for him because he was not ready for marriage and emotional entanglement was right off his list of things to do for the next century.
He’d come much too close to going that direction once already to a woman a lot like Andrea Demakis, but he’d wised up in time and had paid in experience not alimony for his stupidity. He’d determined then not to let a woman get the upper hand in his life and his uncle’s marriage had only reinforced that belief.
He didn’t want to get married.
He sure as hell wasn’t about to fall in love.
He picked up a letter that looked like it was addressed in Matthias’s hand. He must be more tired than he thought. The return address was smudged, but it…
No it couldn’t be.
It was.
The letter had been written by his great-uncle before his death, no doubt about it. The envelope was thick and Sebastian hesitated to open it. He didn’t want to read something that would add to his ambivalent feelings about Rachel. He hated any sort of confusion and that seemed to be the vast majority of what he felt in relation to her.
But he was a man, not a spineless wimp, so he slit the envelope marked personal and pulled out the several page letter. A half an hour later, the pages of the letter in an untidy heap in front of him on the desk, he sat in stunned silence, trying to digest what he’d read.
His uncle had wised up to his younger wife, but too late.
Not only had Matthias acknowledged what a horrible mistake he’d made in marrying Andrea, but he had written that he was concerned that if his mercenary wife thought she stood to gain by his death, he would not live very long. He had therefore changed his will to disinherit his wife completely.
The admission of such a mistake in judgment, not to mention the necessity of taking such action, would have been devastating to the old man’s Greek pride and reading the words had made Sebastian physically ill.
Matthias had informed Andrea of the change in his will as well and his intention to divorce her. No wonder she’d gone so completely off the rails. She’d had nothing to lose anymore and a vindictive streak a mile wide. Realizing this, Matthias had written the letter to Sebastian so that in the event he did die before he got a divorce, his nephew would know that as far as he was concerned Andrea had no claim to the care given a widow within the family.
He stared down at the letter, the sick feeling in his stomach tightening into a knot of tension.
Had Andrea told her daughter their sugar daddy intended to evict them from his life? Had Rachel been angry, prepared to conspire with Andrea to get the biggest divorce settlement possible?
His teeth gritted as he rejected the thought.
Rachel was not anything like her mother. Hadn’t she shown that to him in numerous ways already?
His rational mind reminded him that his uncle had been deceived by Andrea’s false impression of innocence. Was Sebastian just as foolish in his dealing with a Long woman?